The Washington Post:

Chiang Kai-shek ranks as one of the most despised leaders of the 20th century. Famously derided as “Peanut” and “General Cash-My-Check,” the leader of China’s Nationalist government bedeviled the Allied war effort in World War II with his lackluster defense of his country. His corrupt and brutal regime squandered billions of dollars in American aid and drove the Chinese into the arms of the communists. He died in exile a deluded despot, relegated to a footnote in modern Chinese history. Or so the conventional story goes.

Now, however, Jay Taylor’s new biography, “The Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the Struggle for Modern China,” challenges the catechism on which generations of Americans have been weaned. Marshaling archival materials made newly available to researchers, including about four decades’ worth of Chiang’s daily diaries and documents from the Soviet era, it torpedoes many of that catechism’s cherished tenets. This is an important, controversial book.

Why controversial?

Taylor, who was a U.S. Foreign Service officer in Hong Kong during the Cultural Revolution, argues that, far from being incompetent, Chiang was a farsighted, disciplined and canny strategist who repeatedly predicted major geopolitical events and made the most of the weak hand he was usually dealt by allies and enemies. His five decades of participation, at the highest levels, in world-changing events may be unsurpassed in the 20th century. For all his flaws as a political leader, Chiang laid the foundation not only for Taiwan’s prosperity, but also for its transformation into the only democracy in the Chinese-speaking world, and one of the few in Asia.

“The Generalissimo” is especially timely appearing as it does during a period of flux and promise in the delicate dance between Taiwan and China. A new closeness is apparently taking hold: trade agreements are being signed, direct flights are being established and Chinese tourists are flocking to the island. There’s even talk of a peace treaty. So the book naturally raises the question: Whose vision of China’s future is really winning? Is it Chiang’s dream of a more free-wheeling nation, or the image of a revolutionary utopia championed by his communist nemesis, Mao Zedong?

It seems that the question could very well be answered with “Chiang’s.”

Whether this is because Chiang was such a visionary or because communism is inherenly weak is an entirely different question altogether, of course.

In any case, it sound like an interesting book. I ordered it already. You can do the same at Amazon.